Two Traditions: A Fresh Approach to the New Testament

For two thousand years Christians have traced the history of their faith in a single, unified tradition, starting with the resurrection three days after the crucifixion of Jesus. If we discount the comments of theologians and historians, centuries later, on which these assumptions are based, and examine the New Testament texts themselves, without the assumptions and theological interpretations of subsequent Christian doctrine, we discover that there were two distinct traditions.

Each had its own understanding of Jesus and his significance. The first, established by the apostle John and his brother James, saw Jesus as the successor to John the baptist, Elijah redivivus, who had predicted the coming of God's kingdom and been killed and taken up to heaven. For the first decade after the crucifixion, this was the belief of the community at Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Roman empire in its congregations of Jews.

Only after the martyrdom of John and James did Peter become the leader of the group, reinterpreting Jesus as the Messiah himself and introducing the concept of the resurrection. This new conception extended the kingdom of God from a Jewish national utopia to include the Gentiles in a perfect world order.

John's tradition continued, but it was slowly absorbed into that of Peter. From that dominant understanding of Jesus developed a new religion, Christianity.

This work traces the development and significant teachings of the two traditions of John and Peter.